A Midsummer Night's Dream By: William Shakespeare

Synopsis:

Shakespeare's intertwined love polygons begin to get complicated from the start--Demetrius and Lysander both want Hermia but she only has eyes for Lysander. Bad news is, Hermia's father wants Demetrius for a son-in-law. On the outside is Helena, whose unreturned love burns hot for Demetrius. Hermia and Lysander plan to flee from the city under cover of darkness but are pursued by an enraged Demetrius (who is himself pursued by an enraptured Helena). In the forest, unbeknownst to the mortals, Oberon and Titania (King and Queen of the faeries) are having a spat over a servant boy. The plot twists up when Oberon's head mischief-maker, Puck, runs loose with a flower which causes people to fall in love with the first thing they see upon waking. Throw in a group of laborers preparing a play for the Duke's wedding (one of whom is given a donkey's head and Titania for a lover by Puck) and the complications become fantastically funny.

Rating:★★★★😊

Review:

I am shocked by how much I liked this book/play simply because this is my first work of Shakespeare that I have read on my own, without it being required reading for school. I went into this not know anything about it except that it's not a very popular piece of literature that you hear about like you would Hamlet, Macbeth, or Romeo and Juliet, which made this all the more exciting to read.

This is a comedy set in ancient Athens, Greece and it is a very magical, mythological time period seeing that there are faeries that wield magic and the Duke referring to be Hercules's cousin. I really enjoyed the drama in the retrospect of blood apparently not being thicker than water to some characters, who are willing to sacrifice those that won't jump when they say jump. 

I hated Helena because she was so soft and let anyone, let alone a man, make her feel lower than dirt. She was willing to do anything to and betray anyone to be accepted by Demetrius.

The six stooges who were given the task of putting on a play for the Duke's wedding were too much for me. At some times they were so dumb it was funny but at others I was left scratching my head wondering how some can be so dumb.  

But in general this was a very short and a simple romantic drama that I would widely recommend to anyone that is venturing out into Shakespeare or into classics in general.